Claire Conger

White Oleander is my current favorite DVD. It’s both visually and emotionally stunning.

It rings true to the novel on which it was based, a coming-of-age story (White Oleander) by Janet Fitch that is an Oprah’s Book Club selection.

I listened to the novel on audio CD before I watched the movie. Familiarity with the novel, for me, added depth to the movie, and, untired of the story, I watched the movie three times.

Teenager Alison Lohman has to figure out how to become a person in the wake of her mother’s existentialism. The mother, Michelle Pfeiffer, is unrepentant at having wrecked revenge on a man who scorned her and she tries to teach her daughter, even from prison, that good and bad are relative.

The girl lives through three foster homes and the county facility, each with its own story.

Renee Zellweger plays a foster mother who is driven to suicide with the help of birth mother Pfeiffer, again even from prison. The viewer gets to watch this tragedy unfold through the teenager’s eyes, knowing and afraid and helpless. (By my third viewing, I was shouting at Lohman to warn Zellweger, tell her not to talk to Pfeiffer. The girl doesn’t because the foster mother says it’s OK—she wouldn’t have believed the girl anyway. It’s just not a kid’s place to understand emotional power.)